THE VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE: PENCE AND HARRIS HAVE THEIR SAY

 

Vice presidential debates are seldom memorable, but the October 7 contest between Republican Mike Pence and Democrat Kamala Harris broke new ground. Aside from the first appearance by a woman of color on the vice presidential debate stage,

this debate featured a fly who by the end of the evening had 4,067 social media followers. The Fly landed in Vice President Pence’s hair and stayed over two minutes. We could comment on the symbolism. But we won’t. Don’t ever say 2020 hasn’t been a strange year.

Beyond the adventures of The Fly, most post-debate analysis focused on whether it

changed the trajectory of a race that’s looking like a potential blowout. The Biden-Harris ticket entered the debate leading by 9.5 points in the fivethirtyeight.com polling average. Polls released right before the debate showed Biden-Harris ahead by as much as 16 points.

We agree with the pundit consensus that

nothing in the debate fundamentally changed the race even though CNN’s instant poll showed Harris winning, 59-38.   Women thought Harris won, 69-31.

 

Each Had Their Moments

Both candidates entered the debate with specific objectives, some multi-layered and nuanced. Pence, a smooth speaker who

politely, even gently, parrots Republican talking points, defended President Trump’s disturbing coronavirus, climate change, and foreign policy failures. He tried presenting more of a conventional Republican agenda and less of Trump’s personality cult, arguably describing a presidency that doesn’t exist. He pushed the

case Harris will lead Biden down a leftist, socialist path that over- taxes and overregulates. Pence made his points and got whatever mileage he could out of raising that set of issues.

Harris, being part of a ticket that’s ahead, but

still somewhat unknown herself, had to get people comfortable with the idea she can handle the presidency since Biden would take office at age 78. Responding to the succession question, she reminded voters of her resume as a three-time

elected official. She had strong moments on restoring America’s role in the world and the virtue in the Biden-Harris candidacy of having significant Republican support. She also tried laying out the ticket’s program since Biden didn’t get to in the first presidential debate

because of Trump’s interruptions and bullying. She effectively put the Affordable Care Act on the ballot with the reminder, “They’re coming for you,” when she identified a list of impacts terminating the act would cause. The instant poll results and the commentary suggested she succeeded.

 

Missed Opportunities

If both candidates had their moments, both missed opportunities. Harris, for example, could have used the Breonna Taylor question

in promoting how a Biden Justice Department might use federal civil rights laws in such cases and remedy the failures of Bill Barr as attorney general.  She also could have been stronger in her condemnation of the White House events that apparently spread the corona virus.

Pence, for his part, simply ducked a number of questions, like whether he had conferred with Trump about a transfer of power in light of the president’s covid-19 illness. The country needs an answer to that question and a good one might have done the Trump campaign some political good.  Pence may have been catering to Trump with his refusal to adhere to the time limits, but had he followed them, he might have gained credibility for making the debate process more dignified and civil. Critically, Pence didn’t answer the core values question of whether Trump will peacefully transfer power if he loses.             

 

Gender and Race

Inevitably gender and race were likely to

become part of this debate. The historic nature of the Harris candidacy assured that. The gender component manifest itself most in Pence’s incessant habit of exceeding his time (which moderator Susan Page of USA Today tried

controlling, mostly unsuccessfully) and the fact he frequently interrupted Harris. He didn’t do it as rudely and as aggressively as Trump did on September 29, but he did it. It didn’t go unnoticed. Women commentators on the cable networks took him to task, as did our female life partners. Like Harris, they didn’t appreciate Pence’s “lectures” about her record or approach to certain issues.

Pence also probably didn’t earn the Republican ticket any minority group votes by denying the existence of systemic racism or by supporting the grand jury findings in the Taylor case that resulted in no indictments against the police officers who killed her. Given the racial reckoning going on in the country, few reasons exist for taking those positions except knee jerk support for police or cultivating the backing of white nationalists and similar minded individuals. Perhaps Pence feared distinguishing himself from Trump.    

 

Back to the Fly

The Fly generated a lot of post-debate frivolity,

including Biden’s use of a fly swatter in a fundraising pitch. Debates in presidential campaigns often disappoint and people need something to talk about aside from each candidate’s delivery and style. The Fly added that this time. Still, it

was serious business as the vice-presidential debate – and we usually only have one – has become an important part in the process of electing a president. With both presidential candidates in their 70s, getting a sense of the woman and man who might replace them mattered.

Voters who want Trump’s policies – if not his style –  can take comfort in Pence’s performance, for all its flaws. He has some of Trump’s capacity for rudeness, but he wasn’t outlandish, just disconcerting. He knows the drill on the Republican agenda.

Harris showed she and Biden are on the same page. We think they have the better of it on policy, character, and preparation. Harris showed herself capable of taking the baton from Biden and running with it should that become necessary, suggesting she achieved her most important objective.           

FLAG ON THE PLAY: EXCESSIVE (and PREMATURE) CELEBRATION OF THE MUELLER REPORT

Attorney General William Barr’s four-page summary of

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report set off wild end zone celebrations by President Trump and his supporters. The President claimed, falsely, “complete exoneration” in light of Barr’s report that the Special Counsel hadn’t found “collusion” by Trump with the Russians in interfering in the 2016 election, and that Mueller wouldn’t decide if enough evidence existed for an obstruction of justice charge against Trump. Barr, despite acknowledging Mueller didn’t exonerate Trump on obstruction of justice, went ahead and did it himself. Trump surrogates hit the airwaves, using Barr’s proclamations in claiming the investigation was “over” and it was time the country “moved on.” 

 

Regrettably, the media egged on these touchdown dances by asking political figures (usually Democrats) if they “accepted” Barr’s conclusion that no one in the Trump campaign “colluded” with the Russians in their election interference. Quite frankly, we’re ready to throw a flag and call a penalty on this excessive celebrating and the questioners facilitating it. It’s premature if only because no one outside the Justice Department and the Special Counsel’s office has actually seen the Mueller report. How can anyone “accept” a conclusion without any knowledge of what led to that conclusion? 

Mueller’s Charge
We think it useful that we recall exactly what the Justice

Department asked of Mueller. In his May 17, 2017, Order appointing a Special Counsel, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein gave Mueller three tasks:  investigate and prosecute (1) any “links or coordination” between the Russian government and the Trump campaign; (2) matters that arise or may arise directly from that investigation; and (3) crimes related to the investigation committed within the scope of a federal statue covering perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and witness intimidation. 

              

This narrow charge affected what we could ever have expected from the Mueller probe. Rosenstein’s Order specifically gave Mueller prosecutorial authority. The Special Counsel focused, therefore, on charging and prosecuting criminal offenses, not just uncovering the bad acts of Trump and his associates. Mueller certainly might have found evidence of “links or coordination” between the Russians and the Trump campaign, though that evidence wouldn’t support criminal indictments provable beyond a reasonable doubt. To date, we don’t know if Mueller found such evidence because Barr hasn’t released the full report. Mueller might intend that Congress examine Trump’s conduct, even though criminal prosecution wasn’t in order.  

 

We also note Rosenstein tasked Mueller with finding things that “arose or may arise” from investigating the Russia

“links.” Mueller found significant corrupt conduct by Trump and his colleagues that doesn’t concern election interference. Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, for example, will spend several years in prison for lying to Congress about when Trump’s Moscow tower project cratered, a lie that could only benefit Trump during the 2016 campaign. Cohen also arranged, at Trump’s behest according to the indictment, hush money payments to women who allegedly had affairs with Trump. Mueller turned such matters over to other federal prosecutors, especially in the Southern District of New York. We don’t know what else Mueller’s report contains that might suggest wrong doing by Trump and his aides that doesn’t concern Russian election interference. Barr’s terse letter didn’t mention those things and without the report, no one knows if evidence of such misdeeds exists. We think it worth noting that Barr’s summary, according to one cable host, quotes not one complete sentence from Mueller’s actual report.      
 
The Game is Not Over Until It’s Over

Trump’s celebrating ignores two basic facts. First, the Southern District of New York and other jurisdictions continue their probes into such matters as the president’s campaign finance violations, his business dealings, and his inaugural committee’s fund raising and spending practices. Second, his actions remain subject to Congressional investigation and oversight. House Democrats, even if not all of them articulated the limits of the Barr letter as we’d have liked, should know they still have a major job facing them regarding the Trump scandals. At least the leadership apparently understands Barr’s carefully crafted spin job isn’t the last word, however much Trump and his supporters tried making it so. The chairs of six key House committees called for release of the full Mueller report by April 2, with the threat of subpoenas lurking if Barr doesn’t comply. They also want testimony from both Barr and Mueller. 

The American people paid for the Mueller report and should

see it. The House of Representatives, in an unusual show of bi-partisanship, voted 420-0 for the report’s release. That report isn’t a four-page press release written by a Trump appointee who’s already decided a president can’t commit obstruction of justice. The report consists of all Mueller’s findings and the underlying documents that support whatever he found. Until we see that, no political leader or citizen can or should “accept” anything. The reporters who ask such questions should bone up on their logic skills. 

Football has rules against excessive celebrations during games. In a democracy, politics has rules, particularly the rule of law. In this game, democracy v. Donald J. Trump, it’s time for a flag on the play. Let the games continue.  

       

 

INDICTING THE RUSSIANS: IN PRAISE OF ROBERT MUELLER

   Robert Mueller. (photo: James Berglie/TNS)

Friday, Special Counsel Robert Mueller announced the indictment of 12 Russians, one American, and three organizations on charges of interfering in the 2016 presidential election.  We encourage every American who cares about democracy to read Mueller’s 37 pages.  It’s easy to find  and reads, in the words of one cable news host, like a Tom Clancy novel.  

    

The details grab and terrify.  They are riveting and chilling because they describe a vile attack on the United States.  We will resist the temptation to compare this to Pearl Harbor or September 11 – tragedies involving massive loss of life.  We understand the danger in such comparisons.  We find, however, Mueller’s indictment no less significant because it describes an attack by foreign agents aimed at destroying American democracy.

First things first

A few fundamentals help in understanding the indictment’s importance.  First, President Trump has branded the Mueller investigation a hoax.  His supporters have suggested there’s no underlying crime.  Friday’s indictment destroyed both claims.  Mueller painstakingly demonstrated the criminal violations of American law the Defendants committed. They “conspired to defraud the United States by impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions of [governmental agencies] in administering federal requirements for disclosure of foreign involvement in certain domestic activities.”  Translation: it’s against our law for foreigners to interfere in certain American activities, particularly elections, and anyone who participates has committed a crime.

Second, the indictment spelled out, conceptually and in detail, what the Russians did and how they did it.  Broadly speaking, they sought to conduct what they themselves called, “information warfare” against the United States with a goal of “spreading distrust towards candidates and the political system in general.”  The conspirators bought social media ads, organized and staged political rallies, and spent millions of dollars on helping elect Trump.  “They engaged in operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump.”

Target: Black People   

The conspirators aimed some of the “information warfare” at minority voters in a directed, admitted attempt to suppress that vote.  On an Instagram account named “Woke Blacks” they posted, “[A] particular hype and hatred for Trump is misleading the people and forcing Blacks to vote Killary.  We cannot resort to the lesser of two devils. Then we’d surely be better off without voting AT ALL.” An Instagram post on an account called “Blacktivist” said, “Choose peace and vote for Jill Stein.  Trust me, it’s not a wasted vote.”

African-American community members didn’t post these statements. Russians who’d set up accounts, sometimes using fake identities designed to look like real Americans or real grassroots organizations, put them out.  The Special Counsel probably knows, but hasn’t yet said, if Trump operatives cooperated with these efforts.  Regardless, the indictment spells out the illegal activities, how they were done, and the real objectives.

                       
 

More to come

Many questions remain in the indictment’s aftermath.  What happens next?  Obviously, we don’t know but many credible legal analysts believe other shoes will drop soon with the Special Counsel indicting people in Trump’s circle for conspiracy, obstruction of justice, or both.  What about the President himself?  Trump claimed exoneration because the Russians started their program before he announced for President, proving he hadn’t colluded with Russia.  Newsweek columnist and NBC/MSNBC analyst Jonathan Alter, author of “The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope”, found Trump’s tepid response to the allegation that Russia “waged war” on American democracy ridiculous.  It was, he said, like Franklin Roosevelt saying after Pearl Harbor “he hadn’t colluded with Japan.”  How should the Commander-in–Chief respond when presented with a discovery that a foreign power attacked America?  Will Trump now impose congressionally approved sanctions on Russia?  Will he ask for new authority to combat the continuing threat?  Just what will he do now to protect America?   

The indictment’s stunning detail and riveting narrative quality lead us to two observations.  First, it represents magnificent intelligence work and brilliant lawyering we believe leaves no room for credibly questioning if Russian interference in our election occurred.  The indictment described the organizational structure of the Russian operation down to the jobs individuals held, the street address in St. Petersburg of the office out of which many of the defendants worked, and the U.S. states Russian operatives visited before they set up the operation.  Intelligence professionals suggested the United States (or an ally) infiltrated the operation because electronic intelligence won’t pick up some kinds of information contained in the indictment.

Second, this indictment could represent a turning point in how the country views the investigation.  Perhaps now, with the details presented so starkly, more Americans will accept that the Russians did attack us in 2016 and realize if we don’t act, it will happen again and again.  Earlier in the week, the nation’s top intelligence officials told Congress the Russians are still at it and will grow bolder in this year’s mid-terms.  Mueller’s work, if nothing else, tells Vladimir Putin some grownups in the United States know what he’s up to and won’t take it lying down.

We previously expressed our frustration that more Americans weren’t outraged about Russia. Does this change your mind?